Basis of the Society Article 8: 

Belief that a sacrificial priesthood has no place in the Ministry of the Church of Christ, but that such Ministry is for preaching, teaching, pastoral oversight and administration.

Firstly, ‘the Ministry’ referred to is that of those set apart as ministers within local congregations. Of course, all Christians are ministers (or servants) with a responsibility to use their gifts to serve others. Matthew 25:44 talks of ministering to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoner, whilst Acts 6:2 talks of ‘serving tables’ in the context of meeting the physical needs of a needy group. So, for me, this will entail responsibilities to my wife and family, my local church and the team at Crosslinks, to name but a few. At the beginning of the year all Christians would have been thinking of what service/ministry they should offer in the wake of the Asian tsunami. 

There is also however a ‘ministry of the word’ (Acts 6:4), which the apostles were keen not to neglect, whatever the pressure from apparently more pressing needs. For them that meant appointing appropriate godly people to ‘serve tables’ so that they could “devote (themselves) to prayer and to the ministry of the word”. This ministry is the responsibility of all Christians to engage in, but local churches will seek to set apart and support gifted godly people to give themselves full-time to this ministry (including ‘administration’ by which the Article means the Lord’s Supper), without them having to worry about earning a salary to meet their needs and those of their families. The big difference is the time and freedom they then have for this ministry; however it will not make them more important than those who continue to earn their living in other ways. The issue is time, not status. 

Why should this ministry not be neglected even in the face of tsunamis? Put simply and briefly, God’s great plan is “to unite all things in him (Christ)” (Ephesians 1:10 and 4:15). For Christians this was accomplished when we “heard the word of truth” (Ephesians 1:13). For this to happen there need to be evangelists, pastors and teachers “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4: 11-12). That was why it was so important that Timothy should entrust what he had heard from Paul “to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). In this way the word of truth would have affected four generations! 

This is why in January our President, Chris Wright and I returned to Myanmar – a land affected by the tsunami and so much else – to lead a second School of Biblical Training: so that we and others could “rightly handle the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). 

Crosslinks magazine April 2005 index